Blended: Know Your Enemy(ies)
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If ignorant to both your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril. ”
I never wanted to be looked at as someone who overreacted and/or was unreasonable. Never one to assume, you could be sure any theory I had would be put to the test before spoken of as fact. My goal is and has ALWAYS been, to be, at the very least, fair. As a result, before I would make the official decision to noticeably distance myself from my husband’s ex-wife, I would make sure to recount all of my observations, thoughts, and experiences to other people in my life with varying views just to be as certain as I possibly could I wasn’t tripping. They’d all unanimously say the same thing. There were too many coincidences, it was too much and too weird. The running theory was this: Because she no longer held or owed her husband any allegiance or loyalty, she was now capable and liable to do anything. She could very well be looking to my husband for comfort because he was familiar. She definitely didn’t owe ME anything because in her mind I was the one who took him from her in the first place. EVERYONE gave me a resounding WATCH OUT! Together with that, I couldn’t ignore the bad feeling in the pit of my gut. I know I could be paranoid in thinking this but every time I was around her I just couldn’t shake the feeling she was observing me. Looking for a chink in the armor that was my home. I’m not sure when or how long it would take my husband’s ex-wife to notice but I, in turn, would create some distance.
The Vetting Process: For whatever reason, it seems as if loyalty does not carry the same weight it once did. Instead of lifting each other up and supporting one's gains and successes, it seems as if there is more competition between friends than complete strangers. Even more disturbing is the fact that if you are not careful, you could very well bring someone into your circle that has every intention of taking you down. If you are lucky, you already have friends that are vetting each new “candidate” before they ever have a chance to get close enough to do any real damage. During the initial stages of a blooming friendship, it’s hard to see red flags and characteristics that should ring every warning bell in your head. You like the person. You just want to see the best in them. You don’t want to feel or see that they are really out to hurt you.
I often wonder how long a person thinks they can play both sides of the fence before they trip and fall. Sometimes after getting to know people a little deeper we find they aren’t really our cup of tea and that’s ok. It’s not the end of the world if you decide you’d prefer coffee. Not everyone is meant to click or have a connection. However, I’ve never understood the point in blatantly backstabbing someone because that requires thought and motive. It’s ok to cut your losses and move on with no hard feelings. As someone skeptical by nature it often takes me a while before I completely warm up to people. Especially if they’re always a little TOO helpful. Don’t get me wrong. A good friend is a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen, there to help you in a bind and always there when you need them. But I find myself naturally cautious of people who are so willing to offer these things when they’ve only just met you. With WBF and me, this was who we were to each other and it was a process to get there. I’d help her with anything if she called. If she told me she’d just dropped a body I’d tell her “Ok this is the plan…” but that was because my gut feelings and instincts about her were that I could completely trust her. So you can imagine my surprise when someone would enter into my life and make me question that.
Around this time I would decide to give another possible friend a chance. Let’s call her Bee. My husband had switched jobs at this point and no longer worked for the fire department but he still had friends there. This friend would be the new wife of one of his friends. Bee seemed cool enough. I’d been around her plenty at this point. She’d even attended our wedding. They’d recently moved closer to us so we all starting hanging out a lot more. Our son and theirs started going to the same school and even participating in some of the same activities together. I was, of course, apprehensive about her at first but I figured since our husbands were friends I should at the very least give her a chance. They also had a large blended family of their own with a similar set of issues so I knew she could relate to me on that.
During this time a lot of our “married couple” friends were the parents of our son’s friends. This meant they also knew his mom. We did our best to not involve them in the constant drama that surrounded our circumstances but of course, periodically there was trickle over. Obviously, things became much easier when she and I started getting along but before that, she absolutely made it her business to befriend ANY parents we were friends with. If she saw that we had a relationship with them that would be the start of her campaign to build a relationship with them also. It was almost as if because she was so sure we were talking about her, she needed to befriend them to get her side out as well. It was nice to have a local friend that had nothing to do with my husband’s ex-wife. She was new to our environment and situation so she didn’t know her at all. Because she didn’t know his ex-wife or have anything to do with her, it did make it easier for me to want to give her a chance.
Once she moved to our city she started to call and text me fairly often. Always to hang out, get together or plan something. I didn’t think as much into it as I typically would’ve because she and I’d had a previously established relationship. She was also new to the city, a stay at home mom and didn’t know anyone else. She was bound to call the one person she DID know. Even though I knew her from before I did not know her well. I knew her as more of an acquaintance we’d see occasionally when our husband’s hung out. But the more I got to know her the more I liked her. She was easy to get along with, VERY chill and always so helpful. She’d also just had another baby, the second with her husband, so she was a new mom. Being a new mom can be exhausting! Add to that the fact that they also had 4 other children living with them including a toddler, if I’m remembering correctly, had me thoroughly impressed she was always so willing to do much of ANYTHING else.
Our families started hanging out a lot. We’d go to their house, they’d come to ours and I would introduce her to other friends of mine who were local as well. During these visits she’d tell me more and more about her blended family, her husband’s ex-wife/baby mama’s and the different dynamics they’d had to deal with as well. Some of the stories started to sound really familiar. After being sure she’d get it, I started to give her some back story on our situation. I started from the beginning and went fairly in-depth on some of the things we’d had to go through; All the weird things over the years and pretty much everything she needed to get a complete picture of who this woman was up to the point of us becoming friends and by the time I was done she would say…
Bee: “Giiiiirl she sounds coo-coo for cocoa puffs!”
Me: Laughing “Yea… But more recently in the last several years we’ve managed to get on better terms and build a sort of friendship. And it WAS going great until I started to notice her do some really weird shit that has me wondering about her.”
Bee: “Like what?”
I gave her the back story on what her husband had done to her and the situation with WBF.
Me: “… and now well… she’s starting to call my husband just a little TOO much for things that could easily be a simple text and the way she acted when her cousin came to visit was very suspect. I know she’s not happy with her husband, you can see it whenever they’re near each other. She looks miserable. My concern is that she’s trying to pull a stunt with my husband because she has nothing to lose and she’s starting to realize how good she had it with him.”
Bee: “My husband’s baby mama be calling him all the time. She get on my nerves but I don’t wanna deal with her so I be lettin’ him handle it. I don’t have no beef with her. Actually I’m nicer to her than he is because he’s always going off on her. But I don’t worry about it because I know he don’t want her.” She laughed.
Me: I laughed “Well unfortunately, my husband is so non-confrontational he won’t say a word. He’ll just ignore all her calls. His days of cussing her out are long over. But I’m not worried about it in that way. He DEFINITELY doesn’t want her. He literally can’t even stand her let alone look at her with any type of desire. He barely looks her in the eye when he has to talk to her in person. What bothers me is the fact that she would even try. But I mean I could definitely be looking too deep into it.”
Bee: “I wouldn’t worry about it that much right now. Maybe she just goin’ through something.”
Me: “Yea, maybe… But you’ll be seeing her at some of these activities. I’ll point her out and you can tell me if you notice these things too or if I’m just tripping.”
Soon after that Bee would come to a track meet with me. My husband’s ex-wife would come to say hi like she normally did, sit for a second to chat and I would introduce them. As I said, I wasn’t mean to her. I still talked to her but with great caution. Along with all of the additional phone calls, one of the things I’d started noticing at the tracks meets was that any time my husband would get up from the bleachers to walk down, she would follow him down shortly after. Not just once, but multiple times in a single meet. She’d wait about 1-3 mins give or take and then make her way down as well. Almost like she was purposely trying to “run into him” and at first I thought I was truly being paranoid. You know, reaching for the moon AND the stars. Lol, I really did. I can have a very active imagination. But as always, not one to assume, I’d test my theory out. I’d tell my ever so oblivious husband about my thoughts and he’d laugh. He thought I was reaching too and he could definitely be right… So I challenged him.
Me: “I know you think I’m crazy but let’s test the theory. You know I’m hardly ever wrong about things like this but in this case I actually want to be.”
Him: Smirking and rolling his eyes “Ok, How? What are you planning?” He was skeptical because he knew me lol.
Me: “At the next track meet I want you to get up and walk down at random times and we’ll see how many times she gets up to follow you. Simple. Even better if she actually comes up to you to say anything when you’re down there.”
Him: Laughing “You’re ridiculous but ok.”
Me: “Ok deal.” smiling…
Now at the game with Bee I would tell her of the scenario we’d planned.
Me: “Man, I feel crazy even testing this out but I have to know. I don’t want to be overreacting for no reason.”
Her: “Girl you crazy but shit, now I wanna see.”
Us both laughing, I would smile and wink at husband to make his move. I’d tell Bee to watch. My husband made his way down. I would talk to Bee like nothing was happening and mentally keep count in my head. Sure enough, his ex-wife would get up barely a minute later and walk down.
Me: “See! Bee, look!” I’d loud whisper to her.
She’d turn around to look and see her walking down right after him.
Her: “You a M’fuckin lie. She really did go down!”
Me: “See! I KNEW I wasn’t tripping!”
Her: “Nah girl you not. That’s crazy…”
We’d watch her do it 2 more times during that meet and I’d watch her from my seat when she was down there just to see what she would do. All she did was loiter around. Sometimes she’d go to the snack bar or the restroom but one thing that was very obvious was she appeared to be just killing time. It’s totally possible I was losing it and this was nothing more than a coincidence. I FOR SURE could’ve needed to be committed at this point. But something kept telling me to just wait. As with everything I ever got an inkling about all I needed was time. Time had shown me more than I could’ve ever assumed on my own. So I mentally clocked her and waited. Bee seemed to really sympathize with my situation and everything we’d had to go through. She’d often text me to check on me and ask how things were going. Anytime she could, she’d offer her advice or her home as an escape for me and my husband to come chill and hang out.
Through the rest of track season things would break down and deteriorate even more with my husband’s ex-wife. Although I had suspicions of my own, I can’t even tell you where things really went wrong with her. I was still nice to her so that wasn’t it. But if I’m throwing out a theory then I’d say she started to become frustrated with my husband’s lack of communication with her. He never wanted to be friends with her and only supported our friendship because it meant less conflict for him. But he wasn’t buying into whatever she was selling. He NEVER trusted her. Since he wasn’t responding to her multiple calls and attempts at engagement quite the way she’d wanted, I think she became bothered. She’d send an email to him saying almost exactly this which we wouldn’t receive until later when she realized she’d sent it to the wrong address. In the email she’d talk about the lack of communication concerning our son’s extracurricular activities and how she’d become uncomfortable again with my involvement. I found that to be particularly strange because nothing I was doing for the last few years had changed. The REAL problem was she was starting to feel that disconnect. Maybe she knew I was on to her maybe she didn’t but I was pretty sure she felt something. I told my husband everything I suspected and he agreed her behavior had been really off lately.
It would be at one track meet in particular any doubts I had finally be laid to rest. It was May 9, 2014. It was the end of track season and we were at one of the last games until the finals. By this time things felt so awkward for me I was hoping she would choose to sit anywhere else but with us like she normally did. I didn’t have the energy for faked or forced conversation. But they would arrive and her husband would come sit near us like they typically did only she wouldn’t be with him yet. Great was my first thought. My husband and I would say hello to him as usual and she would arrive a few moments later. I’d say hi to her as well. The tension would be so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was the most uncomfortable I’d felt around her in such a long time. I was sitting between my husband’s legs just below him and she’d sit just above him, to his left, her legs mere inches away from his shoulder. Her husband would stand just in front of me to my left but a few rows in front of her. They didn’t seem to really be on speaking terms but with all of the discomfort I was personally feeling I couldn’t tell.
After sitting there for about 5 mins she’d get up and leave. She wouldn’t say bye, let her husband know or anything. She’d just walk away. He’d look at her like where are you going? and she’d just keep walking. It would be another 5 mins or so before he awkwardly say bye to us, collect their things and follow her to wherever she went. That would be the point I look at my husband and mentally say See? with just a raise of the eyebrows. Something was definitely up. We wouldn’t really see them for the rest of the meet until the end when we were all leaving. We’d say goodbye and that would be that. Later on she would post this:
May 9, 2015
Random thought/question: If you could choose between forgetting and forgiving, which one would you choose?..... Sometimes, in some situations, I feel like it would've been better to just forget, then you wouldn't have to struggle so hard with forgiving. If we could forget, we could still deal with those "situations" that hurt us and not feel a thing. Forgiving doesn't erase the pain, it just makes it more manageable. Kind of the way pain medication helps to manage physical pain. If only we could pick and choose the memories our minds hold. How about somebody design a filter for that?! #justthoughts #randomthought #toforgiveorforget #Jesusbeanemotionalfilter
I would wonder…. Who exactly was she talking about? Her husband? Us? Both? She would get into a car accident later that day and it would be deemed her fault. I can’t tell you how relieved we were to hear that everyone was ok, including our son, because he was in the car with her. They all walked away without a scratch. But I did start to wonder if it happened because she was distracted. I knew my gut feeling that something was off wasn’t wrong but so much more was about to be revealed. All I had to do was wait. Wait and observe. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well….